I know its too early to ask this but... I just racked out of my secodary into a keg. I tasted it and it seems to be a little off. It is an IPA, so I figured it would have a strong hop taste. It smells nice and sweet but the taste is kinda soapy. I read that soap tastes can be from being left in the primary too long. It finished with primary after 3 days or so, but I left it in for a full week(It tasted similar out of primary too). Then I put it in the secondary for another week.
My brother wants me to give this up... no way! You guys make good beer all the time. I'm gonna get it right too.
Sorry to keep asking all these stupid questions
Thanks
Joe

I asked the little lady to help me out here. I poured her a sample and had her give her opinion on what it tastes like with the help of Mr. Palmer and his book which lists off very nicely a bunch of off flavors. She thought it seemed kind off Like sucking on a tea bag "Astringent", but when I got down the list to the "grassy" taste she was all over that one. She thought that it was "musty" like it said in the description. I tend to disagree with her on that but maybe the tea bag taste seems right. I have been using kits from Listermans and he assures me that the product is fresh.

Joe: Without seeing the recipe, and considering it's an IPA, you're probably suffering nothing more than tasting a very young IPA--aka green beer. I'd suggest letting it age for a good month before you try it again. Some hop varieties can give a "grassy" taste and some have pungent (ie. stinky) aromas. One week in primary, and one in secondary isn't abnormal--that's the schedule I follow most of the time. Can you tell us what the recipe was and some stats like OG and IBUs? As long as you were good with your sanitation, I'm putting my money on the green beer theory. As far as the astringency, did the kit have steeping grains? If so, what temperature did you steep them at?

How do you do your hops and hop extraction.
Some people try to squeeze all available wort out of their hops, and end up squeezing out off astringent flavors from the hops. use a hop bag, and don't squeeze it. Don't boil steeping grains, and try not to scorch the bottom of the pan(take pot off of flame before adding extract)

I am doubtful that the off taste is just young beer. It is completely undrinkable and tastes exactly the same as all the other failed batches. I still have one of them in a keg that I try every so often(going on 2 months now). It only seems to get worse.
I did have grains and I steeped them at 170deg.
I was very careful not to burn the grain bag when heating it.(this happenned once before)
As far as hops, I use hop pellets which I add directly to the pot during boil.
Another thought I had was, I have become so anal about everything except when I cool the wort I just get it below 100deg and add to fermentor with cool water and I just assume it is below 80... but I dont check it. The yeast always starts off nice and quick so its not hot enough to kill the yeast. If it was, say...90deg when i pitched the yeast would this create off flavors?

Most definitely! Elevated temperatures during fermentation will cause all kinds of off-flavor havoc with your brew. If at all possible, you want your ferment temperature for ales to be in the 60-70, depending on the strain. Some yeast strains are a little more heat tolerant than others. However, all yeast will increase the amount of extra flavors they produce the warmer they are. Assuming you pitched at 80F, what is the temperature of your ferment area? It takes time for 5 gals of liquid to cool down, in which case a major part of the ferment could have taken place by the time the temp got down to an acceptable range.

I use a fermentation chiller and I keep it at 64deg.
This seems to make sense, because usually by the time i finish brewing it is late and i am rushing. The batch that came out good was done during the day and I believe i made sure the wort was nice and cool before i pitched the yeast

Astringency in beer can be caused by a number of factors. Two common causes which come to mind are too high a hopping schedule, and too high a temperature when steeping grains. I noticed you mentioned you steeped your grains at 170 degrees. This might be contributing to the astringency you've noticed. Grains should be steeped at temps closer to 150 - 158 degrees.
Start with water at about 170 degrees, then add your grains. (1 qt water / 1 lb grain) Stir, then take your temp. If the temp is still above 158 degrees, add cold water to bring the temp down. BTW, a good way to detect astringency in beer is to take a mouthful, and before swallowing, run your tongue over the roof of your mouth. Astringency will cause the roof of your mouth to feel rough. Also, you may notice a drying sensation on your tongue, gums, and throat. Hope this is helpful. Keep on brewing. This is a great hobby.

Evryone here will agree that the best possible way to pitch the yeast is at cool temps. Actually, the yeast action will raise the temp of the wort while it is working. I would rather see you put the lid on the fermentor and pitch the yeast the next day than to see you pitch yeast into High temp wort. Pitching the next day isn't something that is recommended, but is better than the high temps. Try switching to a cleaner nuetral yeast like nottingham, or something described as a clean finish yeast. Good Luck!

Ive covered everything else. I am working on a counterflow chiller and a custom stainless siphon(just trying to figure a good way of making a mesh for a filter that I can take apart to clean real good).
I have a package of coopers dry yeast to use with my next batch(a porter). Is that a good yeast to use? It came with the kit.
Hopefully if all goes well I can make something I can drink! I wish I could relax, not worry and have a homebrew so I guess a Sam Adams will have to do for now.
I will watch my steep temp on the next one too.
Thanks guys

Joe, I personally never trust any yeast under the lid in a kit. You just don't know it's freshness, and the temperatures extremes it was subject too. On the few times I've bought kits, I bought replacement yeast from the store's fridge. Try Nottingham or Safale S-04. I've had good experiences with those. However, don't throw the yeast from the kit away; use it as yeast nutrient. How you ask? Simply dump that old, ratty, dry yeast in your boil. The boil will kill them and provide dead yeast hulls in the wort. Look at the ingredients in commercial yeast nutrient, you'll see diammonium phosphate and yeast hulls. Then use the fresh, refrigerated yeast for your ferment.

One of the other posts in this topic probably addresses the solution to this problem, especially the ones on steeping temperature and yeast pitching temperature; but there is one more thing that might be mentioned.

I am curious what you are using for cleaning and sanitation. If you are using chlorine bleach this can have a profound effect on the flavor of beer if the equipment isn't rinsed thoroughly after sanitizing. Chlorine contamination will cause the formation of chlorophenols and chloramines, a class of chemicals with horrible medicinal flavors according to Ted Goldammer the author of The Brewers' Handbook.

For a while I didn't take this fact seriously but I finally realized that there were flavors in my beer that I just could not get rid of no matter how careful I was when making it. When I changed my sanitation procedure using iodophor instead of chlorine bleach the results were quite dramatic in my opinion. Sanitizing costs more now, but it is much better to have good beer.

But I know what you're saying about chlorophenols. I used to use straight tap water in my Mr. Beer days. Yuk! Now it's nothing but activated carbon-filtered water and Star San for me. Oh what a difference!

that stuff is great to use. Its ok to have some foam residue right? thats what it said on their wesite. Its almost impossible to get the foam to drain out.
as far as the yeast, i buy kits from listermans and put the yeast in my fridge as soon as i get it which is 2 days from his fridge.
The yeast you reccomended, is that liquid?